


a dirty back alley

by slaapkat



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaapkat/pseuds/slaapkat
Summary: Harvey is drunk. Joker has a proposition for him.





	a dirty back alley

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: “harvey is being big depressed at the iceberg lounge, he kisses joker about it”. 
> 
> basically! harvey is sad and joker advances his goal to kiss every single gotham rogue. it ended up being too big to post on tumblr alone so I’m putting it here instead! hope you enjoy!
> 
> thank you @ufonaut for proofreading!

It’s late, and Harvey’s head swims pleasantly as he knocks back another drink. The bar of the Iceberg Lounge bustles all around him, sights and sounds blending into a soothing white noise. He’s had-- he doesn’t know how much he’s had to drink. Can’t even remember if he ever actually asked for another round or if the bartender was diligently refilling his glass whenever it got low. Harvey can’t recall ever reaching the bottom, so he’s inclined to believe the latter. Oswald sure knew how to treat his clients well. 

He’s alone, this time. Not even a single one of his men around him. He wants to be alone. He takes another drink. 

It’s his anniversary. At least, Harvey  _ thinks _ so. He was pretty sure of the fact when he arrived. Or rather, it  _ would _ have been.

_ Gilda _ . Harvey’s heart still aches when he thinks about her. 

It would have been their anniversary, if not for-- well, everything. 

He was  _ Two-Face _ , now. Gilda would never want him back, not after all the atrocities he’s committed, all the destruction he’s wrought, the people he’s killed. They hadn’t spoken in years. Harvey knows he has no chance of ever making it up to her, and any other day of the year it doesn’t concern him in the least. He can’t change anything, so there’s no use trying. 

Until the day of their anniversary, of what’s  _ supposed _ to be their anniversary, and the crushing weight of all his regrets compels Harvey to go drink away his miseries in an attempt to force himself to forget. 

Everyone is usually smart enough to leave him be. The Iceberg Lounge was already well-known to be a common gathering ground for Gotham’s criminals as well as its elite, and both knew well enough not to approach Two-Face unless they felt like leaving the fate of their life up to the flip of a coin.

Well.  _ Most _ everyone.

“Harv, buddy ol’ pal!” 

Harvey cringes at the voice suddenly at his side, a sound like nails against a chalkboard. He scowls and turns away from his drink, glowering at his very much unwelcome visitor. 

The Joker stares back, an unnaturally wide and eager grin plastered across his face. Harvey’s scowl deepens. Why Oswald continues to allow the  _ clown _ in his establishment, he’ll never know. Harvey knows he has a gun… somewhere, on him, but he’s having a hard enough time focusing on Joker with his good eye as it is, and barely trusts himself with being able to flip his coin. He’s well and thoroughly  _ drunk _ , and would prefer to enjoy it for as long as he can. Harvey snarls something incomprehensible even to his ears and goes back to his glass; it’d been refilled again in the time it took him to look away. Oswald  _ really _ did know how to treat his clients.

Joker, never one to take the hint, presses himself closer. His gaunt frame combined with that ever-unsettling toothy grin of his gives him the appearance of a demented skeleton. “Boy, you sure look down in the dumps. Whatcha up to?”

“What’s it look like, clown,” Harvey growls. He really just wants to be left alone. “Go bother someone else. I’m not in the mood.”

The overindulgence of alcohol makes Harvey’s brain sluggish, and he realizes too late such a statement only serves to encourage Joker, as evidenced by the way he only crowds himself closer. The acrid stench of gunpowder and formaldehyde that seems to follow him everywhere curls around Harvey and his nose wrinkles against it. 

“Really? You look like you could use some company,” Joker says, pouting. 

“No.”  _ Yes. _ Loneliness gnaws away at Harvey’s insides. He needs to stop talking to Joker before he says something he knows he’ll regret. Or worse,  _ does _ something he’ll regret. He eyes shut as he takes another drink, and by the time he’s opened them again the glass is filled. Harvey hazily considers it a miracle. 

“Oh, yes!” Joker chirps, too close now, sidled up against Harvey’s side. Harvey feels himself go stiff, shoulders going painfully tense. Why couldn’t Joker ever just take the damned _ hint _ . “And what better company than lil’ ol’ me? I’m a hit at parties, y’know! Being a  _ clown _ and all.”

Joker’s chattering grates against Harvey’s nerves. If only he could stop his vision from swimming long enough, he could reach his gun and finally finish the clown off once and for all. Instead, Harvey elects to drain his glass and hope it’s refilled by the next time he reaches for it. “There’s nothing your company can do for me, clown,” Harvey growls, but his voice had lost its venom, more bitterly morose than anything. “Nothing  _ anybody’s _ company can do for me. As if anyone would even  _ want _ my company. Like  _ you _ can fix anything.”

Joker pouts again, annoyed, but it apparently passes quickly enough. An expression Harvey isn’t quite in the right mind to place flits briefly over Joker’s face before he leans close to his ear, whispering low and conspiratorial. 

“Want me to kiss it better?”

Perhaps it’s a sign of just how much Harvey’s had to drink when he doesn’t immediately reject the idea. The anticipated wave of sneering disgust that usually accompanies Joker’s propositions never comes, and Harvey hates himself for even beginning to consider it. 

“...No,” Harvey repeats, belated. It doesn’t matter, Joker clearly noticed his hesitation. Damn him. 

“Now,” Joker coos, running a spindly finger down the lapel of Harvey’s suit as he sighs mournfully. “ _ Harv _ , baby. I know a lost soul lookin’ for a little love when I see one. I’ve been in your shoes more times than I can count.” A pause as Joker purses his lips thoughtfully, and he shrugs. “Then again, I can’t count very high. Anyways, nothing wrong with a little kiss. How about it?” 

Joker wants  _ more _ than ‘a little kiss’, Harvey is well aware of that much. He can see Joker even now from the corner of his eye, careful to touch him everywhere  _ but _ his scarred side, but clearly eager to do so, tentatively skirting the boundary between Harvey’s good and bad halves with every jittery caress of his skeletal, corpse-like hands. 

“No,” Harvey says again, more forcefully if only to convince himself; he means to stand but staggers and grips the bar when the room suddenly pitches to the side. “The last thing I want is to kiss you. Get lost.”

Joker scoffs as though offended, hand flying to his bosom. “Why, I never! What’s wrong with me, huh? Got something against guys? Got something against  _ clowns _ ?” 

It’s not quite as startling as it should be to realize it’s not the fact that it’s another man that Harvey’s hung up on. Maybe he’d always known that about himself. Harvey finds his thoughts straying to Bruce Wayne-- to missed chances and what might have been, if he’d never married Gilda, if he hadn’t been so cautious…

It was useless to think about that now, anyhow. There were no more chances to be had with Gilda  _ or _ Bruce.

“C’mon, Harv,” Joker says, pouting, interrupting his thoughts. He’s giving Harvey what must pass for puppy-dog-eyes and failing miserably at it. “Why not?”

_ Yes, why not? _

Harvey grimaces in distaste. Half the reason he was here was in the hopes it might drown out Two-Face’s needling that much easier. It was harder to be of two minds about anything when both of them were completely shitfaced.

_ What’s the harm, Harvey? _

Harvey considers it. 

A kiss. Just a kiss. Something to chase away that crushing weight of loneliness for a precious few seconds. It shouldn’t matter who it was with as long as they were willing. 

He stands to his full height (a veritable feat, considering his current state of inebriation) and levels Joker with withering glare. Joker must have overheard him talking to himself, as he only meets it with an overly ecstatic, stretched-wide grin. 

Fine, Harvey thinks. He’ll give the clown what he wants. “ _Fine_ ,” he growls, and takes a fistful of Joker’s pinstripe suit, dragging the hysterically giggling clown behind him.

In a dirty alleyway behind the Iceberg Lounge, a still-giggling Joker is shoved roughly against a damp and grimey brick wall, barricaded in by Harvey’s comparatively hulking figure. He’s started babbling, voice high and breathy and trailing off into bouts of manic-sounding laughter.

“Lemme-- lemme touch, I wanna touch,  _ lemme touch lemme touch lemme touch _ \--”

Harvey feels those spidery fingers skirt up his neck, up to his face, across his scars. He closes the distance between them before the sensation of it changes his mind.

The kiss is not gentle by any means. It’s rough, demanding and aggressive, no time wasted spent waiting to see if Joker was receptive or ready at all. A clash of teeth and tongue, bitten lips and harsh words, motivated entirely by the most pathetic kind of desperation. Not that it mattered any, Joker leapt right into it with just as much desperate ferocity, hands tangling into Harvey’s suit and hair and  _ very _ enthusiastically responding in kind, the asymmetric nature of Harvey’s face doing nothing to slow him down in the least. 

Joker moans as Harvey’s teeth drag along his bottom lip, breathing out a name that isn’t his, and Harvey growls. 

It doesn’t--

It doesn’t feel right. 

Harvey gives it another few seconds, shoves Joker back against the wall again for good measure and--

It doesn’t do anything. Joker laughs and _ laughs _ , out of breath, slightly pained, and reaches for Harvey’s face again, a different desperation of his own flashing in his eyes. 

_ This isn’t it. _ The thought comes to Harvey as he listens to himself pant, blood roaring in his ears, numb to Joker’s touch.  _ This isn’t it. This isn’t it, but maybe-- something else _ .

It’s Harvey who reaches for Joker’s face, now, slow and cautiously gentle, close and intimate. The clown actually goes quiet, his laughter falling away to frantic, near-hyperventilating breathing. He wonders if it was  _ fear _ he very briefly saw flit across Joker’s expression, or something else. 

He brushes his thumb across Joker’s lip, and kisses him again, slow and deep and purposeful. Like he  _ used _ to kiss Gilda. Like he  _ wanted _ to kiss--  _ No _ . Harvey pushes it all from his mind. Ignores it. It’s not about them.

_ Is it? _

Joker actually  _ whimpers _ when Harvey pulls away for the final time, sagging slightly against the wall. His eyes are glazed and he stares into the middle distance over Harvey’s shoulder. He’s stopped laughing.

“This was a mistake,” Harvey says flatly. It’s another long, silent moment before he pulls off Joker completely. His tongue runs across his lip and he tastes bitter wax. He scrubs the back of his hand against his mouth to remove any remaining traces. He doesn’t know whether he’s addressing Two-Face, Joker, or simply talking aloud. “This-- isn’t what we want.”

“No,” Joker agrees sullenly, still out of breath, and shudders. “No, it’s not. Huh.”

Joker makes no move to leave, only keeps staring dazedly up at the rooftops, wheezing softly. 

It’s a pathetic sight, to say nothing of himself. Harvey turns and staggers into the night, seeking to sleep off the rest of his regrets and hope he remembers nothing of it in the morning. 

Someday, maybe, he’ll be happy again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I’m also slaapkat on tumblr if you ever want to drop by! can’t guarantee I’ll ever respond to other prompts but oh well.


End file.
